The new tracks of the Burberry's check

For those who don't know the English Burberry (now without "s" at the end), a good introduction, is to know that the brand is responsible for the development of the gabardine. In 1879, the impermeable, soft and chic fabric drop perfectly well over the rainy England and yet as an option for leisure in the country and sea side, very common among the local aristocracy.

Londoner store window display on New Bond Street.

Thomas Burberry started in 1856, when he was 21 years old, opening his clothe store in Hampshire. In 1901 he designed the famous raincoat, adapted to the military style with the First World War eclosion. The trench coat, lined with checked fabric, won the streets, being tied more and more to a concept of elegance, which dressed politics and movie stars.

In 1955, the brand was bought by the Great Universal Stores group and, since then, has been consolidating itself as a real "classic", needed by every and any chic wardrobe and indispensable item in the return suitcase of thousands of tourists. However, in the second half of the XX century, the brand itself got lost in the unstable and more accelerated map of the hits fashion.

Recently, almost by the end of the century, it returned as a strong and legitimate fashion desire. The current phenomenon Burberry is less a revival than a history of trade reinvention. The trench coats were handed over ....The most famous check of the world, now appears connected to characters like Kate Moss, Madonna and Liam Galagher, Oasis's vocalist .

Following the renew wave of its other European brands, GUS invited Rose Marie Bravo (American, ex-Saks Fifth Avenue) for the executive direction of the brand, in 1997. Since then, it was started the creation process of a new image: a fashionable Burberry.

The charming cab printed with the Burberry check is part of the new marketing strategies: modern and irreverent language.

The thing has started to warm up when Bravo recruited the Jil Sander's ex-designer, Roberto Menichetti. In 98 he developed a garment line called Prorsum (from the Latin, "that goes on"). The photographer Mario Testino made the publicity campaign, photographing Kate Moss in black and white. Result: without losing the traditional buyers and the tourists who devastate the Londoner store, the age group of the public changed from 50 to around 30 years old. Or better, it was expanded: it pleases from the grandparents to the grandchildren and also for the fourth generation of the family, as the brand has started to develop its children and baby lines.

In Bravo's own words, in an interview for the newspaper The Independent "Burberry was just a trench coat… And the brand was over exposed and hyper distributed. There wasn't coherence, each country represented its own version. Then we started to develop new products - for much further than the rain coat - and we are controlling better the franchising scheme". Besides that, sets forth the difference among Burberry and other luxurious like Louis Vuitton: "we are accessible luxury: we have diversity of products and prices."

Client shows proudly her authentic Burberry's bag.

At the beginning of this year, left Menichetti and entered Christopher Bailey, who came from Gucci group. You just have to look at the window displays to catch "Bravo's speech": the check now appears in bikinis, swim trunks, caps, belts, ties and other accessories. Other prove is Burberry's bandanna, developed inside BandannaWeek : jeans, printed buttons and stripes to tie. Pure youth. Besides that, perfume line, jeans, shirting and basics produce irreverent looks..

The constant challenge for the brand - and it isn't just for this one… - it is that, as soon as Kate Moss appears with a new Burberry's product, the stores of the high streets will reproduce it very fast. Therefore, Bravo completes: "there isn't so much concern anymore with the logo, as it happened last season. We are in a constant renew and we have to be completely unforeseeable". With an open eye in what is going on, it has been sending secret emissaries to the second hand stores. "We buy old Burberrys in flea markets, restore and sell them. Each one of them is unique and part of our inheritance."

Burberry - 21-23 New Bond Street - Bond St. Tube // 2 Bromptom Rd. - Knightsbridge Tube